How To Tell If Your Locks Have Sustained Damage

Locks have an intricate mechanism; the wrong key or excessive pressure can damage the pins within the lock.

Once the lock pins are twisted or out of place, your basic security system will fail to lock and unlock itself. Apart from misuse, locks can sustain damage from an attempt to break-in the house. You can easily spot a tampered or damage lock, if you know what signs to lookout for.

Different type of damages

Brute Force

This is usually a work of a hasty thief or burglar, who doesn’t have necessary experience of lock picking. A property is illegally entered by drilling the deadbolt lock or literally kicking the door. It requires a lot of force, so that the lock gives away under pressure.

The forceful impacts might leave some components of the lock stuck within the door frame, along with a trail of splintered wood and twisted/de-shaped metal.

Common signs of brute force

Your lock fixture seems lose or retightened

The door latches or the deadbolt is bent

The doorframe is wrapped

Whereas, if you’re struggling with the key more than usual, chances are, the lock pins are tampered with.

Bumping

A blunt key is filed at several points to become compatible with the pins of a specific lock. Burglars can easily open a lock by applying little force and manipulating the lock pins with a bump key. Hence, it’s always better to install anti-bump locks.

This method of breaking-in is hard to detect and often goes unnoticed, but an immature can leave behind traces of their illegal activity.

Common signs of bumping

Bump keys can severely nick and chip away the key hole, look for signs of force or damage to the keyhole

Dents in the metal components of the lock

Lock picking

Lock picking is the old-school method of breaking into a house. With help of lock picking tools, like flat screwdriver and wires, the lock pins are manipulated until the tumbler reaches the right combination.

Unlike, lock bumping, this method is less conspicuous in nature. This makes it harder to identify. Nevertheless, look for scratches on the metal component of the keyhole caused by lock picking tools.

Leaving a damaged lock unattended can be the worst security mistake of all time. We deal with all, simple and complex, locking mechanism. Our experienced locksmiths provide dependable and affordable residential, commercial and automobile locksmith services in the area of El Paso, Texas. Call now to schedule our 24/7 emergency locksmith services.